StubbleJumper

No, dividend yield is one of the parameters that cannot be obtained from the GoogleFinance function. You need to enter that by hand, if you care about it. Most companies bump their divvy once per year, so it's not such a burden to update it, but it's still a shortcoming. SJ

I looked. And there is almost no criticism of Trump in Feb/March. He is the President of the United States. He's going to get criticism (even if he did everything right). But blatant Trump-bashing was exceptionally rare on this thread. My guess is that you are recalling conversations from other threads. I'd say that you are correct about Feb/March. The discussions in Feb/March had already frequently become contentious, with a few posters directing personal attacks and insults at others who held different points of view. At that stage, the personal attacks were usually of the nature of questioning the other person's intelligence or numeracy (ex, person X is too stupid to understand exponential growth). The reality was that there were intelligent and numerate posters on both sides of most issues, but their views were driven by differing assumptions about a wide variety of known-unknowns. My memory was that the political rancour was a little later in June or July, when most of Europe and Canada had their situation well in hand after a lengthy lock-down, but Sweden and the US had a growing mess on their hands. At that stage there were frequent posts lamenting the situation in the US and frequent questions about whether America was great yet and #winning was occasionally used. It was a bizarrely political discourse where every bad outcome was attributed to particular politicians. The venomous political statements related to the covid situation in the US seem to have abated somewhat as numerous countries in Europe have lost control of their situation. SJ

My advice is so simply use Google Sheets instead of Excel. The GoogleFinance function within Google Sheets allows you to pull up a decent collection of parameters (last price, high, low, 52high, 52low, vol, etc) for stocks listed on the major exchanges. This tutorial gives a nice overview: https://blog.sheetgo.com/google-sheets-formulas/googlefinance-formula-google-sheets/ The nice thing about Google Sheets is that once your spreadsheet is set up, you simply open it in the morning and it merrily updates itself all day long with no further effort required from you. I have hundreds of securities in my Google Sheets file, so I haven't found any practical data limitations. SJ

I don't view it that way. FFH has had no shortage of places to allocate its capital (some have been good, some have been disappointing), but it has been chronically in need of more to fund its acquisitions, pay that annual divvy and to (not) repay debt. Prem's assertions about buybacks require a fundamental shift in corporate strategy, which is not an impossible outcome but as they say, I'm from Missouri. In contrast, BRK generates about $40b of cash from operations per year, and the investment portion of its SCFP and the cash balance sadly demonstrates a lack of opportunities to deploy that capital. So, FFH might be willing to initiate a long-term significant return of capital, but it is largely unable to do so without a drastic change in corporate strategy. BRK is *fully able* to return $20B per year, but is seemingly unwilling to do so. The outcome has been similar, but the underlying problem is quite different. I would not describe Prem's or Warren's statements as "aspirational" but rather as "disingenuous" in both cases. SJ

Running? He's 90 years old. I would have thought that walking at that age would be plenty. SJ

Yes, the accounting transaction is that cat claims come from subsidiary cash which is part of the subsidiary reserves, or are added to IBNR. In and of itself, that's not such a problem. The issue in this specific year is that the subs are tight on capital, so heavy claims reduces their capital which impedes their ability to write new business during a hard market, and the covenants on the holdco's revolver limits the amount of cash that can be drawn on revolving credit facility based on the consolidated debt-to-capitalization ratio (max is 0.35:1). FFH was bumping up near the ceiling of that ratio at the end of Q1 (was 0.34:1 on March 31). There was modest net income generated in Q2, which gave a bit of breathing room on that ratio ceiling (was 0.325:1 on June 30). But, now in Q3, it's quite possible that all of the income earned in Q2 will be reversed due to an unusual succession of cats. So, are we back to where we were at the end of Q1, where FFH would be close to the ceiling of that consolidated debt-to-capitalization ratio if the revolver were fully drawn? The revolver is large and gives great flexibility, but only if you can remain below 0:35:1. Clearly, given enough time, FFH can earn enough to be able to fully draw on that revolver, but the short-term hits to equity are problematic. If Q4 is "normal", FFH can earn enough income to once again have have a bit of breathing room. But, if they take any impairment tests on certain assets and determine that a write-down of a major asset is appropriate, or if broad-market equity values slide in a post-election environment, it could quickly become an issue. As long as FFH earns a bit of money in Q4 (ie, no major write-downs, no major mark-to-market losses on equities), the revolver will be available and it will be quite reasonable to declare the annual dividend. But, it would have been a much more comfortable if there had been a light-cat year. So, as I said, it's hand-wringing. SJ

Cats are okay if you've properly priced the risk when you wrote the business, and I think FFH generally does a good job of that. The problem that occasionally occurs is that two or three really large cats stack up in one year. So, this year we will probably see a total of about $600m for covid and another $400-500m for the fires in California, a $100-200m for the Atlantic hurricane season, plus miscellaneous. In this particular year, it might be as high as $1.5B in cats for $15B of net written? So, if you think that FFH would have been good to write a 95 CR in a modest cat year, now you need to think more like 102 or 103 for 2020. It's like 2001 or 2005, with the large events stacking up. Years like this happen, but they are bit harder to take when FFH is a bit tight on capital and needs to actively manage its cash (hence the hand-wringing). SJ

Yeah, I'm not worried about the impact on statutory capital from share awards to employees. I am, however, a bit curious about the impact of cats during Q3. I trotted out the possibility that cats could total $750m, which would likely result in a considerable negative earnings number for the quarter (not at all unusual for Q3 of any year). The magnitude will likely be driven by indemnities triggered by the California fires -- they paid out $233m in 2018, so what will it be in 2020 when the fires appear to be considerably worse? I wouldn't at all be surprised to see a net loss in Q3 that roughly offsets the net income in Q2. If that's the case, FFH might be a little bit tighter on capital than it would like (but not dangerously tight). A private equity placement would be disappointing at current share prices, but I would at least understand the motivation. However, all of that hand-wringing is a separate issue from employee compensation. SJ

No, that's fair. I was hasty in my response and I have struck it out. SJ

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa450/5821281 The secondary attack rate to contacts who were spouses of index cases was 27.8% compared with 17.3% for other adult members in the households. https://ncrc.jhsph.edu/research/household-transmission-of-sars-cov-2-a-systematic-review-and-meta-analysis-of-secondary-attack-rate/ It also estimated 32.5% (95% CI: 7.4 – 57.5%) of households with an index case had a secondary case. Spouses had statistically significant (P<0.001) increased secondary transmission (43.3% of spouses were infected) compared to other relatives of the index case (18.3%), and adult contacts had significant (P<0.001) increased transmission (31.0%) compared to children (15.7%). Repeated studies have shown spouses of index case are infected less than 50%. In two confirmed cases I know personally, in both families the spouse turned out to be negative. In fact other family members got infected but not the spouse. The explanation that is given for less than 50% of spouses of index case getting infected is that about 50% have built in immunity even before covid infection. You have to add the Covid antibody for seroprevalence studies to this to get the percent immune to Covid. If you look at Florida, Texas, India. All of them have turned around (India just starting) and in the seroprevalence studies in none of the places is it above 30%. All of that is interesting, but none is particularly pertinent. The study that Spekulatius quoted was conducted during July, but the authors could not specify a particular collection of dates. In the absence of that, you need to assume that the data reflect mid-month, or July 16. So, the study showed that on about July 16, 8.3% of 328 million people had antibodies, or about 27.2m people, IFF you believe that dialysis patients reasonably represent the general population (more on that later). So if the sample were representative to the population, the study would suggest that 27m Americans had antibodies on July 16. On July 16, there were 3.7m officially diagnosed cases of covid. So, if the dialysis patients are representative of the general population, the true number of cases in the US would be 7.4:1 of the official number. So, where are we today? The US is now up to 7.3m official cases. If you believe the 7.4x ratio that Spekulatius' study would suggest, that would suggest that ~54m people would have antibodies today. So, that's a shade higher than 16% and herd immunity might be about 60%? According to this particular study, that's the math. Now, turning to representativeness of the dialysis group, we need to reflect on Spelulatius' assumption that these folks are representative. Spek would suggest that the presence of visible minorities would make the group representative. The countervailing behavioural assumption might be that any rational person with a comorbidity (dialysis requirement) would have been making extraordinary efforts to reduce their social circle to avoid covid. What is more, one must also question the extent to which dialysis patients are employed, because workplaces are an important place of exposure. If you are so sick that you require dialysis, are you sufficiently healthy to work. I therefore question the representativeness. The study is nonetheless valuable. But, perhaps in your own mind you need to multiply the results by some sort of scalar to reflect the potential for lower contacts among the dialysis group. So take the 16% antibody rate and gross it up as you see fit. The "finish line" might be about 60%. What is interesting about this study is that, if you believe that dialysis patients made a modicum of effort to reduce their personal contacts, a 10:1 ratio of antibodies to official cases might be supported by this study. Unfortunately we won't know the truth of the situation for another couple of years. SJ

So, are the treasury shares destined for the employees, or do they need to issue some equity? Let's hope it's for employee compensation... We know that they are a bit tight on equity in some of the subs and that holdco can only draw on its revolver if consolidated equity levels are high enough. Not surprisingly, Q1 was a clusterfuck. Q2 was a bit of a disappointment because the equity portfolio didn't really bounce back. Q3 ends in 2 days, and the major equity positions haven't done much over the past 89 days, plus Q3 is traditionally the worst for cats (what will it be, maybe $500m for the California fires, another $100m for covid, and maybe $150m for Hurricanes Laura and Sally?). So is this a sign of a private placement? SJ

Annual news. They must file one every year on the off-chance that they wish to repurchase shares. It's just a formality. SJ Thanks for cooling my excitement ;) So, when and how would they report actual share repurchases? FFH usually makes mention of the repurchases in its quarterly financials. Alternatively, if you don't want to wait until the financials are published, you can look for filings on SEDAR or this site is a good option: https://www.canadianinsider.com/company-insider-filings?ticker=FFH SJ Anyone else notice subordinate voting share count is actually up YoY? 27,242,281 at 9/16/2020, 26,067,450 at 9/16/2019. I hadn't noticed that, but after you flagged it, I pulled up the Q2 financials: https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/doc_financials/2020/q2/FFH-2020-Q2-Interim-Report-(Final-Milestone-July-30-0451-pm).pdf On Page 21 of the Q2, it says the June 30th subordinated share count was 26.3m shares in 2020 vs 26.9m shares in 2019. It's not exactly Teledyne, but at least it looks like the share-count is going down slowly... SJ

Annual news. They must file one every year on the off-chance that they wish to repurchase shares. It's just a formality. SJ Thanks for cooling my excitement ;) So, when and how would they report actual share repurchases? FFH usually makes mention of the repurchases in its quarterly financials. Alternatively, if you don't want to wait until the financials are published, you can look for filings on SEDAR or this site is a good option: https://www.canadianinsider.com/company-insider-filings?ticker=FFH SJ

Annual news. They must file one every year on the off-chance that they wish to repurchase shares. It's just a formality. SJ

What is truly fascinating is that Cigarbutt went to the trouble of posting the graphic portraying the 7-day rolling new cases per million population, which shows pretty clearly that the US, the Netherlands, Spain and France are all currently in the same boat when it comes to new covid cases. Denmark, Canada and the UK are rapidly heading towards that boat. The bizarre response from some posters to the trends that we've seen over the past month or six weeks is to double-down on the Trump criticism. It's all fine and well to criticize Trump's engagement on this pandemic, although I tend to believe that the importance of the federal government's role is a bit overstated. However, how does one attribute this entirety of this situation to Trump, when half of Europe is in the same damned boat right now, and the rest of us look like we'll soon join them? It should be pretty obvious by now that the posters in this thread who suggested in March that the lock-down measures undertaken by a great many countries could only temporarily hold down the spread of covid. In most countries, the lock-down measures were relaxed in May/June and look where they are at today. They are exactly back to where they started in March. The difference now is that I suspect that very few of those countries will find the popular support among the population to implement another aggressive lock-down. In short, my guess is that those countries will largely come around to the US approach of having a relatively high tolerance to the spread of the virus. Or, we could just continue to vilify one guy. SJ

Why do you expect partisan posts? Maybe there are two coronavirus threads I have been reading the wrong one. We heard all summer about the lack of leadership in the US compared to Canada, Europe, NZ etc etc. That posting seems to have changed. Maybe that was his/her point Canada is really trending the wrong way heading into fall/winter. What a lack of leadership up there. Testing and tracing must be going well. Maybe we should be testing more knowing 45ish% of people have no symptoms and people can test positive for weeks after not being contangious. That sounds like it will be real effective. Worth a try no? Yes, that was precisely my point. There is a cabal of posters who attributed all of the US failures to one particular individual and pointed at the success of countries in Europe and of Canada in better controlling the virus as models which the US ought to have followed. Three months later, the number of daily new cases in European countries are no longer dissimilar to that of the US, which shows how effective test-and-traceback is with this particular virus. Should we attribute Europe's failure to control covid to the US president too? SJ

Yes, the people who were saying that Denmark was the best model are pretty quiet these days. Denmark is at ~500 cases per day about now, for a population of a shade under 6 million people. So, take Denmark and multiply by about 60, and that would be similar to the US. So, 500 x 60 = 30,000 (still lower than the current number of new cases in the US, but not appreciably). All of the people claiming that Sweden was misguided and that Denmark's test and traceback approach was dialed-in are pretty quiet in September. Do we need to talk about the Netherlands or France? Where are all of the aggressive, partisan posts these days? BTW, Canada is rapidly heading the wrong direction too. SJ

In 2035, Prem would be 85. Let us hope that his health and mental acuity hold. It is interesting that nobody in this thread has made mention of Ben or Christine. SJ

Yea I actually just exchanged messages and emails with a few folks over the weekend and this morning on this rising risk. We are entering flu season. Everyone has their minds made up about a second wave. The EU countries are already chomping at the bit to lock everyone down again(MOAR POWER!) Lockdowns kill businesses. So that will have some adverse and material effect. Now what if Biden wins? One of his first actions upon entering the office would be shutting down the country from January til June....I wouldn't "go all cash". But I'd put some trades on that compensate you for this risk. Does the US federal government actually have the authority to lock-down businesses and recreational sites within the 50 states? SJ Per the constitution, I do not believe they do. But they doesnt really matter to most of these people. Executive orders and work arounds will allow them to accomplish this, if they wish to, which they have already hinted at. So the federal government could probably shut down every federally regulated industry (air traffic, rails, etc), but individual governors could tell it to go piss-off for every other aspect of economic and social life? I would expect about 40 governors to tell the president to piss-off in that case. SJ

Yea I actually just exchanged messages and emails with a few folks over the weekend and this morning on this rising risk. We are entering flu season. Everyone has their minds made up about a second wave. The EU countries are already chomping at the bit to lock everyone down again(MOAR POWER!) Lockdowns kill businesses. So that will have some adverse and material effect. Now what if Biden wins? One of his first actions upon entering the office would be shutting down the country from January til June....I wouldn't "go all cash". But I'd put some trades on that compensate you for this risk. Does the US federal government actually have the authority to lock-down businesses and recreational sites within the 50 states? SJ

Strangely enough, if a fully effective vaccine were available today, a 51% immunization rate might just be adequate to achieve herd immunity in the US. If you believe that one-third of Americans have already had covid, and if half of the other two-thirds choose to get immunized, that would result in about two-thirds of the population being resistant to covid, which is roughly what might be required to send that R0 below 1 on a long-term basis. As time passes, I increasingly expect that a large portion of young adults will abstain from the immunization, and unless school boards make the shot mandatory, I suspect that a considerable portion of parents will not have the shot given to their children. If the meta-analysis summarized in Table 4 of this paper is anywhere close to correct, it would be completely understandable that people in their 20s might not lose any sleep about not getting the vaccine: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v4.full.pdf+html SJ

Maybe you're pulling my leg but just in case you're serious. First, a picture is worth a thousand words but i owe you an (scientific) explanation for the partisan picture: Taking into account the pathophysiology of the virus, its mode of transmission and multiplication as well as socio-sanitary data from the area where the rally occurred, it's likely that many will become sick, some will be hospitalized +/- requiring ventilatory support and a few may have signed their own death warrant. For the method to insert an image (please accompany with a scientific explanation, especially for the causation part), you can use (click on) the bottom-left item on your screen above the smiling emoji and obtain: [ img ] [ /img ], then insert your url link with a proper image format so that it becomes: [ img ] http://www.blablabla.png [ /img ]. i also learned earlier this year (from an exchange between posters of whom at least two are vit.D fans) how to change the size of the picture to improve the 'fit'. For example: So, by using: [ img ] [ /img ] and changing it to: [ img width=# ] [ /img ], # being something like 200 to 900, you can adjust size. BTW, the correlation coefficient for the above data is a solid 0.95 so i've petitioned my local jurisdiction to limit cheese consumption even if it may have an adverse effect on vit. D levels at the population level. In a show of good faith, i will accept a recommendation to take vit.D during the next winter if you submit a specific product (i need help). Please not the product that contains fermented and rancid cod oil. Hope this helps but i'm starting to wonder. No, I am not pulling any body leg. I wanted to post a graph from a pdf article, not from a website. I can extract the plot itself as an image. Is there a way to post that inside the article instead of as an attachment? Thanks for the information to post from website but that is not what I am looking for. The primary article on Calcifediol and also the meta-analysis about Vitamin D for respiratory infections are both randomised clinical trials. They are not causual. In addition there is lot of causal data. Why are you StubbleJumper and Cigarbutt so hungup on causal studies part of my post ignoring the randomised clinical trials which are interventional trials? No, I'm not making fun of the studies you quoted, but rather the general tendency to confuse correlation with causation. On the specific subject of vitamin D, I would say that it was one of Dr. Dalal's most important contributions to this site last April. For a brief period, he abandoned his aggressively partisan approach to covid to instead provide practical advice about what individuals could do to manage their own risk. Vitamin D was one of his key recommendations, and frankly, as we approach the equinox, it stands prominently in my mind as a measure that should be adopted. It is quite clearly a "heads I win, tails I don't lose" proposition because for $10 you can purchase 200 caplets to take you until the next equinox, and in Canada's winter, at worst you'll be a little less deficient than usual in Vitamin D and you'll be out $10. At best, it could do something for you that is of considerable value. So, Pascal's Wager? SJ

The classic graph is the one that demonstrates clearly that climate change has been caused by the disappearance of pirates: Obviously, to combat climate change, we need the Crown to issue a few more "letters of marque." SJ

Fires in California cost FFH $233m in 2018. Anybody got a wild-ass-guess for 2020? SJ

Cirgarbutt, I would suggest that the area under the curves might not be measuring the same thing for each country. As we know, the area under the curve measures only a fraction of the "true area" because officially diagnosed cases are a small fraction of the actual number of cases (many are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms). What is actually being measured by the Swedish curve? It's a measure of diagnosed cases in a country that seems to view covid as inevitable and mild for most demographics. Given that attitude in Sweden, is it likely that many people bother to get tested? The worldometer data would seem to lend a little support to that view as Sweden has 124k tests per million population, while Spain is at 214k tests per million. If testing is one of the drivers of the number diagnosed outcomes per million, all other things being equal, you would expect the area under Spain's curve to be greater than the area under Sweden's curve. None of that, however, it meant to suggest that there is not a great deal more pain awaiting both countries. SJ